Many valuable fish species are in serious decline, requiring human intervention to prevent further decline and extinction. Such intervention includes the use of apparatus and methods for diverting or repelling fish away from zones of danger caused by man made structures, such as the intakes of hydroelectric power turbines, or the intakes of pumping stations used on lakes for off-peak hours that pump water from the low side of the hydroelectric power dam to the upstream reservoir, or the intakes catching fish. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,177,891 entitled "Game Fish Attracting Device" by Holt teaches of a game fish luring device that is capable of generating multiple acoustic signatures for attracting a particular fish. Moreover, this teaching discloses well known means of obtaining underwater acoustic signatures using standard underwater acoustic apparatus. However, this teaching does not suggest or teach of either a means or method for recording accurate hydroacoustic or hydraulic flow data that a fish's sensory organs experience at a water inlet.
Previous fish behavioral studies have been based on assumptions that sound field emanations influence a fish's movement and could be represented by mathematical models based on an acoustic field of simple sources such as dipoles and monopoles. Generally, these studies have dealt with only a compressional wave component of a sound field that does not include an actual particle motion component. Such studies do not adequately describe the sound field that influences a fish's behavior, especially in areas of high turbulence. Fish have a very important sensory organ referred to as the lateral line which contains hair cells that transduce mechanical hair motion caused by these types of pressure differences and particle motion experienced at a water inlet into neuroelectrical impulses. The function of this important sensory organ is not taken into account by methods known in the technical arts of environmental studies. Moreover, the sensors are incorporated into the body of a fish being studied wherein the fish closely resembles an actual fish that minimizes extraneous flow induced noise that would otherwise would be encountered if a regular hydrophone were used. Thus, the instant invention's sensory fish surrogate is a means for collecting and analyzing through a processor interface relevant acoustical/hydraulic data that can assist in the design of a water inlet that will deter fish from such a water inlet. Alternatively, the invention can be used to collect and analyze acoustical/hydraulic data to attract fish to the entrances of fish bypass systems.